As AI replaces human roles, the tech sector could lose as many as 235 000 positions this year.
Amazon has warned that artificial intelligence (AI), specifically generative AI (GenAI), will trim its workforce as the technology will “change the way our work is done”.
The company, the world’s fourth most valuable in terms of market capitalisation, has already shed 2 200 jobs this year, data from RationalFX released this month shows. It joins Intel, Microsoft, Meta and HP in streamlining in the wake of an accelerating shift toward automation and AI.
Microsoft could reportedly become the latest tech company to cut more jobs, with a Bloomberg article last night citing sources saying that thousands of roles in sales will go as it increases spending on AI. It has already trimmed its workforce by 8 840 jobs this year – a decline of almost 4%.
RationalFX says Intel is making the most changes, as it will have cut its workforce by 20% by the end of the year after culling 15 000 employees in 2024.
The research company anticipates that, based on the fact that 646 workers a day on average lost their jobs since the start of the year, the total number of tech sector layoffs in 2025 could reach 235 871.
The international tech companies with the largest number of layoffs so far this year.
This week, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy told staff that AI would mean a leaner workforce. In the note, which he reposted online, he said: “As we roll out more GenAI and agents, it should change the way our work is done. We will need fewer people doing some of the jobs that are being done today, and more people doing other types of jobs.”
Among the types of roles that will generally be affected by AI are those that include customer service and data entry. However, he said, those requiring problem solving, critical thinking and creativity will be less affected and may even benefit from a move to AI.
In January, McKinsey Digital stated that, over the next three years, 92% of companies plan to increase their AI investments.
Jassy added that it was difficult to indicate how many jobs would be affected, given that some people will be let go, while there will be space for new career paths. “In the next few years, we expect that this will reduce our total corporate workforce as we get efficiency gains from using AI extensively across the company.
“First, we have strong conviction that AI agents will change how we all work and live. Think of agents as software systems that use AI to perform tasks on behalf of users or other systems. Agents let you tell them what you want (often in natural language), and do things like scour the web (and various data sources) and summarise results, engage in deep research, write code, find anomalies, highlight interesting insights, translate language and code into other variants, and automate a lot of tasks that consume our time.”
Compelling agentic future
Jassy pointed out that there will be billions of these agents, across every company and in every imaginable field, noting there will also be agents that routinely do things for you outside of work, from shopping to travel to daily chores and tasks.
“Many of these agents have yet to be built, but make no mistake, they’re coming, and coming fast.
“Second, and what makes this agentic future so compelling for Amazon, is that these agents are going to change the scope and speed at which we can innovate for customers. Agents will allow us to start almost everything from a more advanced starting point. We’ll be able to focus less on rote work and more on thinking strategically about how to improve customer experiences and invent new ones.
“Agents will be teammates that we can call on at various stages of our work, and that will get wiser and more helpful with more experience. If we build and leverage the right agents, it’s going to rapidly accelerate our ability to make customers’ lives easier and better every day, and it’s going to make our jobs even more exciting and fun than they are today.”
RationalFX points to economic uncertainty and high interest rates as being further causes of the decline in positions. Overnight, the US Federal Reserve voted to hold interest rates steady, a position that it has maintained since the start of the year.
In addition, the World Bank recently stated: “Global growth is projected to slow to 2.3% in 2025, nearly half a percentage point lower than the rate that had been expected at the start of the year.”
This is in the wake of the uncertainty caused by US president Donald Trump’s varying position on tariffs.
